Newport News and Hampton began work earlier this year to determine what city services could be shared between the two localities.

This week, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake announced plans for a similar effort spearheaded by the Hampton Roads Partnership, a group dedicated to regional collaboration. Hampton and Newport News officials have said that they passed on joining that study because the region's waterways would make it difficult to share services with South Hampton Roads communities and because the Peninsula cities were already working on a shared services initiative with the fire departments.

However, Peninsula officials said Wednesday that they may be involved in future studies that examine how regional governments can consolidate services.

Newport News City Manager Neil Morgan and Hampton City Manager Mary Bunting are slated to meet next week with the Ohio-based consultant who wrote the report for the Hampton Roads Partnership.

"We'd be open-minded to something if we thought there was value in it," Morgan said.

If another study focused on how Peninsula governments could share services, the study would be more relevant, he said. Morgan also said the Peninsula governments currently share more than in South Hampton Roads, and cited among others, the Community Services Board and Newport News Waterworks.

The study released Tuesday reported that Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach could save between $11.4 million and $15.1 million by sharing government services, such as health insurance, juvenile detention, human services and police and fire training.

The Hampton and Newport News fire departments found they could potentially save about $100,000 on purchases — $50,000 for each community — by consolidating its purchasing operations, said Newport News Acting Fire Chief Scott Liebold.

The cities are also looking at other shared fire services, such as an automatic mutual aid, where each city would dispatch vehicles from the closest fire station, regardless of municipal boundaries.

Dana Dickens, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Partnership, said he's optimistic the Peninsula governments will agree to a study in future years.

"I very much believe that they see the value and are interested in participating," Dickens said.

Each locality paid $50,000 for the study, with $25,000 coming from the city governments and the other half coming from corporate donors.

Hampton spokeswoman Robin McCormick said that the city is "going to look at this."

"As a city, we want to explore any opportunities to enhance our services and save our citizens money," she said.

"I see this study as a good model moving forward," said Jerry Newfarmer, president and CEO of Management Partners, the group that conducted the southside study. He said governments have been much more interested in sharing services since the recession.